You can also check out my piece “White fear” from June 1, 2020. On February 28, 1990, I was a 13-year-old 8th-grader living in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a shy, quiet kid – small for my age. I enjoyed school and usually earned good grades. I had close friends and was coming to terms with missing…
Why does saying “whiteness” disturb white people?
During the 40 days of Lent, the season leading up to Easter, many Christians traditionally forswear some vice or temptation. Some people might give up coffee, sugar, or alcohol. Catholics may fast entirely on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and avoid meat on every Friday of Lent. This year, the First United Church of Oak…
How joy became a commodity
Komm, Herr Jesu; sei du unser Gast; Und segne, was du uns bescheret hast. Whiteness is the bargain that all white people's ancestors accepted. It was simple: in exchange for being accepted into whiteness – a fellowship of basic social status and economic reward – they agreed to give up their ancestral cultures. My ancestors…
White parents, let’s look beyond our own children.
In my community of Oak Park, the high school just canceled extracurricular activities for the next two weeks, until winter break, due to a rise in COVID cases at the school. A number of students and parents in the community are frustrated about this cancellation, and some of them staged a protest this past weekend…
Patriotism
Americans are not uniquely patriotic, but many of us express the patriotism common to citizens of empires throughout history. This patriotism equates happiness with military and economic might. This patriotism unironically claims that ours is the best country, not just in the modern world, but in the history of the world. This patriotism is about…
We can heal…if we reach for one another.
Our American society has developed a commitment to the primacy of the individual human actor. We valorize the man who -- we imagine -- goes it alone, setting out on his own to make his fortune, whether on the Western prairie or in the urban marketplace. Our national mythology celebrates the Founding Father, the cowboy,…
The real learning loss
This essay was also published in the Oak Park newspaper Wednesday Journal. Every year, parents, educators, and community members worry about “summer learning loss”. During the pandemic, these worries have taken on new dimensions: what can we do about all the knowledge and skills that students have supposedly lost over the past year and a…
Unmaking this world
This piece was also published in the Oak Park newspaper Wednesday Journal. This world will be unmade. Will it be by the creep of increasing vapors altering the chemistry of our atmosphere and oceans? By the waters and winds of a weather cataclysm? By the scorching inferno of an unstoppable fire? By the armed conflict…
The work of antiracism is the work of relationship.
Recently, news outlets have been covering two letters decrying antiracism work at two elite, private schools in New York City. In the first letter, Andrew Gutman, a white businessman, describes pulling his daughter out of Brearley School, citing the school’s “obsession with race”, and sending his letter to hundreds of families whose children are enrolled…
Choosing abolition
This was also published in the Oak Park newspaper Wednesday Journal. This week, Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the murder of George Floyd. As many have argued, this is not justice, just a small measure of accountability. True justice means changing the system so that these murders stop happening. So that people like George…
